


Made of Stone

by Faiakishi



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Captivity, Child Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Sacrifice, how do ao3 tags even work, like...a lot of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:05:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faiakishi/pseuds/Faiakishi
Summary: A beggar, a mongrel, a boy with no shoes,He fell to their hands to cage and abuse.The Outsider was human, once. There was once a cult of people who took him and cut his name away.When He knew them, they had names and ambitions. Their names have fallen to time, but the plans they had for Him have not.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not too much in this chapter, just your basic child abuse and kidnapping. Mentions of child prostitution. The next chapters will deal with heavier stuff.  
> Notes on historical accuracy and whatnot below.

_How do you know what I believe? What do you know of me?_  
_What do you know of all the things I feel?_  
_You’re only made of stone!_  
_Who is it that you see, instead of seeing what I am for real?_

* * *

  
The boy didn’t like the city. It was crowded; dusty. The dense crowds made it easy for him to weave through the streets, picking pockets as needed and running off without detection. But they also swept him up in their flow, forcing his feet to move in directions he wouldn’t have chosen for himself.

He wished he could go back to the town by the sea. He liked the whales. Watching them as they swam out near the horizon.

But there was little to eat there now. The fishermen were pulling up less and less fish with each trip, and what little they caught, they were selling at high prices. Too high for a scruffy street urchin to afford. Too expensive for shopkeepers to waste a meal in exchange for a day’s worth of work from a fourteen-year-old orphan boy, already too skinny and starved for most manual labor.

There was no going back, but he wasn’t keen on staying very long. The city was too dirty. Too many faces. Too many secrets. And there was someone following him.

Maybe on the other side of the island. Maybe there was another city. Maybe they had fish.

The boy didn’t know exactly where, which direction to start walking. He had never seen a map, just knew that they were surrounded by water. The jungle started not far from the shore, and kept going the higher he climbed, coming to a halt here, where the mountains became too steep for humans to comfortably traverse. Here, he found another city. Where jungle met crag. He didn’t much care for any of it.

He’d figure it out, though. For now, there was an ever-present gnawing in his stomach that took priority. There was a shadow that loomed over his shoulder that weighed on his mind. The ocean remained a dream while he tended to the technicalities of life.

The boy had made his living doing small odd jobs to pay for food and clothing, stealing whatever else he needed to survive. He begged when he felt too tired or weak to keep moving. He slept in alleyways and on rooftops, anywhere he could get away from prying eyes and sticky fingers.

But it this city, where the guards kept their accusatory gaze on him, and where shadows lurked behind him, he was forced to seek something he had never cared about before. Protection.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t ashamed to walk up to the front of the whorehouse. He wouldn’t have known if he was supposed to-selling your body wasn’t different from selling your labor, in his mind. And people paid good money for young boys like himself. He’d often been told that, when he was turned down for a job, or when someone dropped a spare coin in his lap.

Inside he could hear the voices of children, some younger than he was. Boys and girls who had fallen through the cracks, who didn’t have mothers or fathers there to catch them and set them on their feet again. Grown women wandered about the entryway, draping themselves over chairs or dancing. One of the women walked up to him and took his hand. Asked if he was looking for work. He checked over his shoulder before nodding yes.

She led him past the airy entryway and up the stairs. A gaggle of children ran down, laughing and singing a song about sunshine. Two men sat on the steps, their heads bowed together as they talked. No one looked at the boy.

The first thing the Madame told him to do was take his clothes off. The woman who led him up disappeared back through the doorway. The boy wished she hadn’t. The Madame bade him to stand in the middle of the room and called another woman from the next room. They circled him, grabbing his hips and pinching his belly.

They agreed that he was too skinny. Too bony. They asked him how old he was. They asked him if he had any experience. They never asked him his name.

The other woman, the Madame’s assistant, said they could tell patrons he was twelve. Younger, even, if they dressed him right. There would be buyers. The Madame pinched her face up in concentration, looking displeased.

A knock at the door. The same woman appeared, but the kind smile she showed the boy was gone. A tall man with greying hair stepped through the door.

 

* * *

 

The Madame suddenly liked the boy quite a lot. He was worth a lot to them, was one of their top earners, and was her nephew didn’t he know?

The man didn’t stop smiling as the price for the boy went up. Didn’t withdraw his offer. Pulled out coinpurse after coinpurse, until the Madame practically drooled over the mountain set before her.

The assistant pointed out his unique complexion. How his skin was so pale, even when the sun beat down so harshly on the dirt. His black hair, his green eyes. Odd. Exotic. Good things, the boy would have thought. Except the man nodded at each point as if expecting them and his smile just grew wider.

He asked at least five times if the boy was a virgin. Only on the sixth time did he ask the boy, turning to him like he had forgotten his presence.

The woman who greeted him waved sadly goodbye as he was led from the brothel, the man’s hand firmly wrapped around his upper arm. He didn’t wave back. He was angry with her for leading the man to him.

There was a lot the boy didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to read or write; he barely knew how to swim. He didn’t know who his father was, didn’t know where his mother had gone or when she had left him. But he understood the concept of money. He understood that he could trade coins for fish and other kinds of food. He understood that you could use money to buy something and make it yours.

He understood that this man had given the Madame enough money to buy a boat full of fish, and maybe the boat itself. He had given her the money to purchase him.

And he didn’t like that. So he did what he usually did when he was caught in a situation he did not want to be in-kneed the man where it hurt, and turned to run.

The man let go of the boy’s arm, but he had only gotten a few steps away before he felt hands slide under his armpits, lifting him into the air.

He kicked. Thrashed. Bit the man’s finger when he tried to cover his mouth. He screamed, even though he knew nobody was going to bother coming to his aid. Nobody did.

It made no difference. The man’s hold on him didn’t lessen, and his smile never faltered. Eventually the boy calmed enough that the man put him back down on the ground, allowed him to use his own two feet, though he now kept the boy’s wrists firmly clamped together behind his back, his other hand on his shoulder as he guided him through the city.

 

* * *

  
The temple was in an older part of the city, less populated. No children played outside, and the few shopkeepers that hung around their front doors looked up as they passed, only to quickly turn their eyes back to the floor and back to their work. Dead animals littered the street, their bones exposed and bloodflies burrowing under the rotten flesh.

The man let go of the boy’s wrists when they reached the temple steps. His hands on his shoulders, almost guiding him as they made their way down the stairs. The boy craned his neck until he could no longer see the sunlight. The man kept inching him forward.

The temple was cooler than the world above. People stopped and stared as they pass. They all wore robes, the boy noticed, and he wrapped his arms around himself and wished his clothes were warmer.

They stopped in a large, circular room with a fire burning in the middle. There was a hole in the ceiling for the smoke. The boy stared up at the blue, blue sky, and wished he could fly.

Several people approached the man. They began speaking in low whispers, and the boy could not understand. The man let go of his shoulders. The boy wondered if he should try to run.

The figures in robes turned to him. They told him to take his clothes off. Once again, the boy stripped for an audience that didn’t give him the privacy of turning away as he bared his body for them. Once he was naked, one of the robes took his raggedly shirt and pants and threw them in the fire. The boy caught his protest in his throat. His heart pounded in his chest.

They lead him on once again, unabashed in his nakedness. He tried to cover himself with his hands. Nobody seemed to care, either way.

He was led to another room, where more figures in robes gather. They pushed him into the center, and instructed him to stand with his hands at his side. People circled around him, staring at his body. The boy kept a watch on the exit.

One of the robes started asking the smiling man questions. Where he cornered the boy. What he had been doing. For the seventh time that day, his virginity was questioned.

It was a while before they turned to him. Asked him about his parents. If they would come looking for him. Any friends. Employers. When he answered no, they asked if he had hit puberty yet. They asked if he knew how to read, and if he prayed.

Someone was writing as they spoke. The boy couldn’t tell if she was recording his answers or something else. He stood on his tiptoes to see the page, but the symbols made no sense to him. He had a friend, once, who claimed she knew how to read. She didn’t, but he enjoyed watching her point out scribbles and symbols and make up words to go along with them.

Eventually he was given a robe of his own to wear. Brown, and several sizes too big for him. The boy was just grateful to have something between him and the cold air, something that hid his body from the people who acted entitled to it.

They were all very, very happy. He noticed that. Nobody stopped smiling at him.

 

* * *

 

There was a feast that night. The boy was certain he’d never seen so much food in one place before. Tables piled high with plantain and pears, apricots and cherries. Colors of grapes he had never known existed. Soft, dark breads and spiced meats.

The boy was told he could eat as much as he wanted. He could have kissed their feet.

A beast was roasting on a spit, over the fire that sat beneath the sky, but the boy paid it no mind. He went around the tables, picking off morsels of food and shoving them into his mouth. Others raised an eyebrow at him as they retreated with their plates, but the boy had never used a plate. He felt it was an unnecessary step. He filled his belly and enjoyed the heat of the fire.

Later on, the boy threw up at the edge of the great circular room. One of the robes came up behind him and he trembled, certain he was about to be beaten or whipped. But the woman just ran her fingers through his hair and told him not to worry about it. He was unaccustomed to such rich foods, after all. It wasn’t his fault. Someone else would clean it up.

The boy lied with the rest of the people in robes that night. The sprawled out wherever they could find room-some on benches, on cushions, a few on beds made of wood and animal skin. The boy wasn’t shown a place to sleep, so he laid down on the cold stone floor. He figured it would be an opportune time to leave, while everyone was asleep. He stared up at the stars and thought one more day would be worth toughing out, just for the food.

 

* * *

 

He woke up in a different place than where he fell asleep.

They moved him because of the sunlight, they said. He was to avoid it from now on, they said.

He could leave the room at nightfall, they said.

 

* * *

 

After several days, the boy knew he had to leave.

True to their word, the robes had allowed him all the food he wanted. He roamed the temple freely during the hours of the night, when most of the robes went about their business. The room he slept in was safe and secure. He hadn’t been beaten once.

There was a room in the temple where they made candles, rolling animal fat and mixing in whale oil. They allowed the boy to watch, but snatched the wax from his hands when he tried to copy them. Writing lessons took place in another room. They waved him away as soon as he appeared in the doorway. In other areas, the people in robes set to work carving patterns into animal bones. He had no desire to partake in that.

There were bathing rooms with vats of warm water, clean for drinking yet he was met with frowns when he cupped his hands and brought the water to his mouth. Rooms where the people in robes meditated and prayed to strange idols. A few of the more important robes had rooms of their own, and the boy wasn’t allowed in those places.

He didn’t question that. What he did question was why he wasn’t being put to work.

The robes wanted _something_ from him. They wanted him to owe them for something. No one ever gave without the intention of collecting on it later. And the boy did not want to find out what they planned on collecting from him.

The boy usually wandered at night. Watched the robes at their work, looked at the writings and drawings on the walls. Explored the reaches of the temple. No one seemed to be watching him. No one should notice if he ‘wandered’ out the front door.

 

* * *

 

 

They noticed.

 

* * *

 

He was carried back to the room he had been sleeping in and deposited on his cot. He jumped up, made a run for the door. He was caught once again and thrown back.

He tried to fight. They bound his hands behind his back.

He tried to bite them as they got near. They pushed him on his back if he got close.

He gave up and cursed them all.


	2. Chapter 2

_And you, who sound so nice!_    
 _The more your dreams and fancies fill my head, the farther that I fall,_    
 _Shut my brain down_

* * *

  
The boy was no longer allowed to leave the room. People came and went, but avoided conversing with him. His hands were unbound, but every attempt at fighting resulted in him being tied up again. The boy resigned himself to waiting it out.

One of the robes-the head one, the boy worked out, from the gentle tones the others took with him and the reverent way they used his title-the Augur visited him often. He told the boy he was lucky to be here. That they were there to help him. That he was their prince.

The boy yelled curses at him, demanded to be let go. The Augur just smiled at him. Told the boy he’d understand soon.

 

* * *

 

The stars weren’t in position yet. That was what they told him when he demanded clarification. When he demanded to be let go.

It wasn’t time. It would be soon, but not yet. But that was fine, as there were preparations. He was not to worry. The people there, they would take care of it all.

The boy didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to know what they were waiting for. It left a cold, hard pit in his stomach, and he promised himself that the event would never come to pass. That he’d be gone when it came time. That he’d escape.

There were always a few robes in the room where he resided, guarding him or bringing him food and water. Some were just going about their business. They never left nor took their eyes from him, not even while he changed. They still smiled, but it wasn’t a constant thing.

He didn’t bother with ridiculous ploys to get their guard down or anything; he took whatever chance that presented itself to escape. He only needed to succeed once. Then he’d be free.

He’d headbutt the robe guarding the main door and push him down, letting the prone body trip the robes following him out of the room. Other times he’d dive down to avoid grabbing arms and dash towards the exit. It never worked. Large, strong arms always wrapped around him and lifted him up into the air, carried him back. It didn’t stop him from trying.

One night, he kicked the door guard so hard he stumbled, and there was a sound of metal on stone. The boy scooped up the object on the floor without even looking and proceeded to run.

As always, the robes flocked to him, eager to block his path. It didn’t matter-he was lighter, faster. He had a lifetime of running away from things to prepare him for this event. He just had to time it right, get lucky and get a straight shot to the door.

A girl in his path. She ran to meet him head-on.

He raised his fist, not even thinking about hitting her, not even comprehending that the thing in his hand was a dagger.

She bled.

His hesitation was due to his days lying around, inactive. That was to blame for his delayed response, to his dull instincts. That was why he didn’t take the opportunity, when the robes flocked to the bleeding girl on the stones, to run. He didn’t feel bad about hurting her. Not one bit.

They didn’t haul him off to his cot again. Instead, they dragged him straight to the Augur’s room. Tied him to a chair and stared at him. The smiles were gone.

He waited in silence. He wondered if this was it. If this was the final act that made the robes lose their patience with him. If they would free him or kill him.

The Augur finally returned to his quarters. He didn’t speak to the boy. The boy didn’t speak back.

They stared at one another for a long while, both their faces an impassive mask that refused to crack first.

Then the Augur jabbed the blade of the knife down into the boy’s thigh, the same place the girl had been wounded.

The boy howled. Wept. Pulled at his bindings and screamed curses at him, at the guards, at everyone. He begged for release, for answers. He cried some more.

The Augur knelt in front of the boy, where the ashes of the boy’s mask lay. He tilted his head up to meet his eye, and stared into the tears and desperation.

A twisted smile appeared along the crack.

 

* * *

 

 

The boy was beaten that night.

The cultists bandaged his leg and told him he’d be fine-the girl would live, after all, he would too.

Then they tied him face-down and watched as their leader took a strap to the boy’s back and legs. They bandaged the cuts left by that as well and turned him on his back, so his chest could receive the same treatment.

It wasn’t anything the boy hadn’t received before, from disgruntled employers to vengeful shopkeepers to antagonistic guards. He told himself this was no different. That if he could tough it out before he could tough it out now. He refused to think of the matter as a betrayal. It wasn’t as if he trusted these people. It wasn’t as if their kindness had meant anything.

He wasn’t sure if he managed to sleep after the beating or if the act had simply taken an entire day. Maybe he had lain there in shock, unable to comprehend the passage of time. But he noticed the quiet that fell over the temple during daylight hours, when most of the occupants slept. He noticed the noise and busyness that came with their rousing, in the late afternoon to dusk. He could tell that the previous night had ended, and a new night had begun.

More cultists poured in, speaking to the Augur in low whispers, glancing at the boy long enough only to affirm that he had not heard. The boy wasn’t listening. He had begun thinking of whales at some point during the beating, and had retreated into a fantasy land wrapped in water.

A few wandered over to him, picked him up. The boy did not protest as he was untied from the table, now stained with his blood, and tied to the chair again.

He didn’t cry when one cultist procured a razor. He didn’t cry as his dark hair was shorn from his head, falling in a neat circle around his seat. He didn’t cry even though he knew the ragged, clumsy haircut branded him as a fugitive. A runaway slave.

Even if he managed to escape the temple, no one would aid him. At best ignored; at worst he would be brought to the market and kept in the pens. The cultists would only have to check the slave bloc to retrieve him.

He didn’t cry. Not while they cut his hair and personhood away. Not while they bound him back to the table and left him to sleep. Even after they left, when it was just him and the Augur left in the room, he only allowed a few tears to fall, turning his head so they wouldn’t be visible to the man across the room.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t bother questioning where he was being moved to, when they came to untie him. Or why. He knew the Augur, with all his talk about the importance of the boy and how he was their ‘prince’, he was getting awfully tired of having the boy around. And he knew the cultists wouldn’t answer his questions anyway.

They pulled a length of cloth over his eyes, wrapping it too tightly around his head and securing it with a knot. He tried to pull at it, push it up, but his hands were batted away and lashed together behind his back.

The walk wasn’t long, but the boy was weary and unused to the temple halls. He tried to keep track of the turns, to keep an idea of where he was, but he was lost.

His hands were unbound; his blindfold raised. He barely had the time to take in the small, small room before there was a rush of air and a bang from behind. He whirled around, but the cultists were gone and the door was already in place.

The boy went to push, but found it stuck. He pulled on the lever and got the same result. He gripped the top of the door and tried to pry it loose from its frame. It did not budge.

He kicked. He banged. He threw the weight of his body onto the door.

He refused to howl. To yell and beg to be let go. He knew he would be denied. He had no intention of asking the cultists for anything ever again.

So he sat down with his back to the door and cried.

 

* * *

 

 

The room was not quite wide enough for him to lay down horizontally; if he pressed his feet flat against the wall, he could lay down until his shoulderblades met the opposite wall. Length-wise, it was long enough to accommodate a wooden bed frame with animal furs stretched atop it, and a bucket for relieving himself in the far corner.

The ceiling was high enough that he couldn’t reach it while standing on his toes, not even while jumping. He had to stand on his bed and leap off in order to hit the cold, stony top.

Three sides of the room were hewn from rock. The fourth had only the door, large and made of metal that sapped his warmth when he pressed his skin against it. No matter what he tried, the door would not move for him.

He had one glowing lamp that hung from a string in the ceiling. It never seemed to run out of fuel, even after giving off light for days. The boy tried to grab at it, take it down and see what was inside it, but it was cool to the touch and something about the pale blue color deeply unsettled him.

The lamp was too bright to sleep comfortably with, so the boy had to resort to sleeping on his stomach with his face buried in the furs. He refused to think of how he had never slept in a bed before, and how comfortable it was. He was determined not to be grateful for a single thing the cultists gave him.

Every so often, a cultist would open the door and give him food and a jug of water. They’d wait and watch over him as he ate, taking everything back with them when they left. Once in awhile they’d switch out his bucket.

The boy was shushed when he tried to speak to them.

 

* * *

 

 

The word  _cell_  came to mind, though the boy wasn’t sure where he had ever heard the word before.

He was bored in his cell. There was no sunlight, no conversation, nothing. He wasn’t even allowed to keep his water jug with him, lest it serve as a distraction.

The boy never asked what he was supposed to be distracted from. He supposed it was another ritual. Another thing that wouldn’t be explained to him until it was time.

 

* * *

 

 

The Augur deigned to visit the boy again. He brought the boy his plate of food and water, sat beside him on the bed and stared as the boy consumed everything before him.

The boy didn’t ask questions. The Augur answered them anyway.

He wasn’t ready. There were preparations.  _Purification._  The heavens weren’t quite in place; the boy wasn’t quite…

Soon. That was all the answer the Augur would give him. A pat on the head and a glimmer in the man’s eye.

The boy did his best to ignore the Augur’s smile as he ate, running through new escape plans in his mind.

 

* * *

 

 

The first attempt was a well-planned undertaking. The boy waited in the corner, pressed up against the side of the door opposite to where the lever sat. Once the door opened and one of the cultist came through to deliver his food, he kicked as hard as he could in the groin and pushed him to the floor.

If it had been a female cultist, he had intended to aim for the chest and push her off balance. But luckily it had been a male, and he had keeled at the strike and fell over with a relatively weak shove.

Unluckily, there were several guards hidden behind the door, waiting for the boy to attempt another trick.

He did not get to eat that night. Instead, the Augur had him tied up and choked the boy with a length of rope until he saw black spots at the edge of his vision. The boy tried to keep track of how many times his eyes rolled into the back of his head and how many times he gasped for air, but he had only learned enough of his numbers to count his age and a bit beyond.

At the end of it all, the Augur asked if the boy had learned his lesson. He fell unconscious seconds later.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometime, after the third escape attempt or so, a man with a pale face and leather hands brought the boy his meal. He closed the door, as per the ritual, and sat down next to the boy on his bed.

He began talking. It was unusual.

The man was all smiles, just like the rest of the cultists, but unlike them, his eyes didn’t smile as well. There were pauses in his speech, unrehearsed dialogue falling out of his mouth.

He told the boy he reminded him of his son. He had to leave him and his wife behind when he joined the cult, had to send them far away so the cult wouldn’t have to kill him. He named another island. The boy wasn’t familiar with it. The man told him it was to the north, but the boy didn’t understand.

He said he missed his son, but that he bore a resemblance to the boy. The man would place a reassuring hand on the boy’s arm, stroke his hand.

The man told the boy he had to promise not to try and run away anymore. Said it would break his heart, to see him leave again.

The boy said nothing. He wanted to promise, and that made him as angry as it did confused.

The man didn’t seem upset. He reached deep into his robes, and pulled out a six-sided spinning top. Pressed it into the boy’s hands.

He had to hide it from the other cultists, the man told him. They would take it away if they found it. Destroy it.

 

* * *

 

 

A whale. A rose. A heart. A rat. A bird.

The sixth side was probably meant to show a face. The boy thought it looked more like a skull.

He spent hours with it, that stupid little toy. Spinning tops were meant for children. He had never had one, of course, but he had outgrown such a thing long ago. He was too old to long for toys.

But he found himself not caring much about his age in the cell, where he had nothing to occupy his time but that little spinning top. He kept it well hidden whenever he heard the slightest noise coming from his cell door, indicating someone was about to come in. He hid it in the furs of his bed, under where he usually rested his head. Otherwise, he kept it in hand.

He didn’t even spin it that much. Just held it in his hands and ran his fingers over the carvings.

He didn’t want to like a cultist. He didn’t like him. But when he pressed the top to his chest he found himself hoping that the man would be the one to bring him his next meal.

 

* * *

 

 

Another cultist burst in as soon as the man tried gifting the boy another toy. The boy didn’t even have time to see what it was in his hands before it was ripped away, handed off to be immediately burned.

The man stammered out excuses. Apologized. Said that the boy begged for the toys. That he was just trying to appease him. Make him more malleable.

It didn’t matter. They lopped his head off right on the threshold of the boy’s doorway. They took the body and left the puddle of blood seeping out under his door.

 

* * *

 

There was a woman who had insisted on being the one to bring him his food. That was what she had told him, proudly. That she couldn’t wait to meet him.

She stared at him with big eyes, the wide grin on her mouth never faltering. The boy didn’t respond. Didn’t acknowledge her.

She took his plate from him before he was finished. Placed it on the floor of his cell.

She put her hands on him. Pushed up his robe so that his thighs were visible. Touched his knees, his thighs. Snaked her hand up to fondle his chest.

Then she was grabbing his hand, pulling it to her crotch. She squeezed her thighs together to hold it there. She moved her hips back and forth, forcing the boy to feel her genitals.

She reassured him this was okay; that he’d still be a virgin for the ritual. That it didn’t matter. She palmed him through his wrinkled robes and he thought it did.

Eventually she was leaning over him, grinding their crotches together. The boy’s hands had come up, to push her away, but she had grabbed hold of his wrists. She whispered to him as she kissed his neck. Laughed as he focused his gaze on the opposite corner of the room, and her breath tickled his hot cheeks.

She asked if he would grant her favor. Reminded him that no one else was willing to do this for him, so he should show her favor in the future. She told him to remember her. He was almost grateful when the other cultists interrupted them and beheaded her on the spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really want to use names or explicit descriptions of things, aside from a few things I wanted to give extra weight to. But I conceded and gave the Augur a title. I kept calling him the 'head cultist' in the first draft and it was just weird. An Augur was someone who, in Roman times, would study the flight patterns of birds and use it to discern the will of the gods. So I figured it fit. An alternative was 'The Gazer', which sounds cooler, but I just knew I'd slip up and call him 'The Geezer' at some point.  
> Locks had just been invented for the first time around 2000 B.C. So I'm sure the poor kid had no fucking clue what was going on when he was locked in his cell. 'Why is this door handle not moving?!'  
> Bad symbolism on the kid's toy is bad. Not even really meant to be symbolism really, more like easter eggs.  
> His lamp is made with whale oil. It was 'discovered' in the Dishonored universe when someone noticed that poor people were burning it for light, (yes, literally a white guy saw it being used and took credit for figuring out it could be used that way) so I imagine it was probably a long-standing tradition among the impoverished.


	3. Chapter 3

_If I were senseless, I’d prefer it!_   
_Another gargoyle on this turret,_   
_Spitting rain down to the stones below._

* * *

  
They laid him down on the stone, cold floor. Pinched his nose and poured the liquid in his mouth.

The dreams were horrifying. Bursts of colors and splashes of darkness, screaming and misery and pain. He was aware of songs, of verses and chants whispered by faceless cultists in his ear. They were background noise to the show. They guided it along, kept him walking the path they had chosen and pushed him back when he tried to jump off.

They removed the cuffs and restraints, even the blindfold when he was in the throes of hallucination. He didn’t need them. He couldn’t see past the visions anyway, and the pain kept him immobile. When the darkness did retreat and he could no longer feel the claws on his flesh, he was so drained he couldn’t will his limbs to move.

The first time, they said, he did good. The session lasted for two days. They said they would aim for longer next time. They said the longer he spent under the influence, the clearer the visions.

 

* * *

  
He didn’t understand the visions.

They were abstract, without order. Dark, wriggling shadows that clawed their way over his eyes. There were figures, people, but they had no edges. No depth.

He could see bones, see blood. He saw teeth and tar-black feathers, red glowing eyes.

Red and black. Red and black.

Sometimes he could feel them on his skin. Fingers and teeth, pulling him apart and tasting his heart. It wasn’t painful-the pain came from inside. But they made him want to retract away and never feel anything again.

The cultists didn’t seem to care about the non-specifics. He held groups of them enraptured as he spout out their prophecies, writing down his words and bading him to elaborate. And when he finally came down from those highs, they’d still be there, pouring over their notes and reflecting on what they meant. They would still be hypothesizing and trying to place names and meanings on his visions long after they had wafted away and the boy had been laid down to rest.

If there was anything even slightly pleasureable in his life anymore, it was those precious hours after the visions faded. They wrapped him in furs and laid down with him to sleep, their arms and bodies entangled over his. They were too close, but he was always too exhausted to care, and his dreams were blue.

 

* * *

 

 

The boy saw an opening there, in the drug sessions. An opportunity.

After the medicine had run through his body and the visions receded, he made no move to get up. To fight or run.

The cultists hovered over him still, fingers stroking his face and whispering mantras to him. He stopped responding when they asked what he saw. The whispers stopped, but the hands didn’t.

He forced himself to go limp and slowed his breathing. He didn’t talk, and only opened his eyes once to stare blearily at the cultist who cradled his head in her lap and allowed them to roll back into his skull.

The fingers stopped. Hushed whispers became panic. Someone’s bare feet slapped against the stone.

He stayed limp as they carried him off once more. Someone worked over him, fumbled for his heartbeat and felt his forehead. They stuck something down his throat and forced him to throw up. He willed himself not to react. To stay unresponsive.

Most of the cultists were banished from the room, instructed to return to their duties as they waited for their prince to recover. He had to recover. It wasn’t time yet, after all.

The Augur had stayed with him since the start, kneeling by his side and praying over his prone body. Fatigue eventually overcame him, falling asleep in a chair near the boy’s head.

The boy waited with one eye cracked open until the medicine man was preoccupied, his back turned. Then he silently got to his feet, pulled the hood of his robe up over his head, and slipped out as quietly as he could.

He told himself not to run. To walk without a purpose, to avoid suspicion. There were cultists milling about, but none knew who he was. The doors to the temple were in sight.

Perhaps he had walked too fast and attracted notice. Perhaps he looked up at precisely the wrong moment, and someone got a glimpse of his face. Perhaps someone had been watching him since the start. Perhaps none of these things. It didn’t matter.

A hand on his shoulder. He drove his elbow back and met flesh, but the grip on him didn’t give enough for him to break free. He was pushed forward and the other hand grabbed the back of his head and slammed it down into the stonework.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t black out; not really. Black lines squiggled across his vision, but he remained awake. In pain, but aware. They carried him back.

The Augur ordered everyone to leave. He strapped the boy to the table himself, never missing an opportunity to hit him or smack his face. He called him ungrateful. That he was useless without them. That they gave him purpose.

The beatings no longer had their intended effect on the boy, and he thought maybe the Augur saw that reflected in his eyes. He wondered if the cultists would accept defeat then, understand that they could not break him so easily. He thought himself a fool for not thinking they would keep trying.

The Augur plucked up on of the candles that lit his room. He used a burning oil lamp to light it, and stood over the boy and let the wax drip onto his chest.

It hurt, but the boy grit his teeth and refused to cry out. The Augur didn’t react, didn’t even look at his face as he moved down his body. The boy wondered if it was already over.

The Augur set the flame upon the sole of the boy’s foot. It didn’t quite lick his flesh; setting him on fire would just be too easy. No, the Augur kept the tiny flame a hair’s breath away from the boy’s flesh, letting the skin crack and blister as the heat danced over it.

It was slow work. The Augur ensured that each and every bit of skin had been kissed by the flame.

He left the boy for a short while after he was burned, allowing him to relive the pain and gave him no respite from the heat in his soles. After he returned, and after the boy begged for some relief, he wordlessly obliged.

The boy regretted asking him for anything. The Augur sat down, a knife in his hand, and held the boy’s foot up to eye height and let the blade of the knife sink into the hardened, burnt flesh. He scraped away everything that was ruined and damaged, taking several layers of skin with it and leaving tender, red soles in his wake.

The boy choked. He had done his best to cry silently before, if at all, but this treatment was what caused him to scream.

 

* * *

 

 

He tried to drift off into sleep, after the Augur had wrapped his feet in cloth and laid down in his own bed himself. He wanted the release it gave him. In whatever form.

It did not come.

 

* * *

 

 

The Augur woke to the sound of someone’s knuckles on his door. He first saw to the boy’s feet, changing the linens and wiping away the tears that came with it, smiling down at the boy all the while. Then he gathered the boy up in his arms, carrying him out to the main room.

The boy’s arms were lashed to a pole, with his back to the great circular fire that never went out. He wondered briefly if it was time now, but he knew it couldn’t be that simple. He felt almost disappointed.

He only fought against the ropes when three new captives were brought in. Each naked and blindfolded, tied together in one long procession.

The boy did not remember what he yelled. Only that he did so. He _begged._

The captives cried and pleaded for mercy. The cultists said nothing. Not to them, not to the boy. Their mouths only smiled.

None of the cultists needed to tell the boy why. He knew.

The first captive screamed as they cut her throat. As she gurgled in her blood and finally died, the other two panicked. One started begging, saying their parents were very wealthy and would pay a lot for their return. The other tried to fight them off, but he got as far as the boy did when he struggled.

One of the cultists wiped a sponge over the dead girl’s neck. The boy pulled on the ropes, repeating that he had learned his lesson. They still brought the sponge to him. Made him taste her blood.

The killing and blood drinking repeated itself twice, and the sponges and the bodies of the captives were thrown into the bonfire. The boy was turned to watch as flames overtook their bodies, licking away the flesh and exposing their bones.

The cultists danced without song around the fire. They paid no attention to the boy.

The Augur carried him back to his cell just before the sky turned pink. He talked as they walked, about purpose and that the captives there had many. They had existed to help him along his path, to help _prepare_ him. Their deaths were of purpose. And in death, they would continue to serve the cult, through the use of their hearts and bones.

The boy closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The ritual repeated every time the boy attempted escape.

The mutilation of his feet occasionally changed in it’s methods; the Augur usually took the hitting them with a branch or strip of leather. The burning or cutting of his soles occurred only when the wounds from the last punishment were deemed healed enough. On one occasion, the Augur smashed several of his little toes in a fit of rage. The boy had screamed in pain, but secretly reveled in the knowledge that he had caused the Augur to lose his temper, even if just for a moment.

The sacrifices were always the same. The blind faces changed, but it was always three. They always begged. They always cried.

And they always died.

And the taste of their blood always lingered on the boy’s tongue, long after he had watched their skin turn to ash and their bones plucked out of the flames with long pinchers, ready to be carved into totems and jewelry.

Still, the boy didn’t relent. He tried harder and harder, thinking of new schemes and elaborate plans that seemed like the pinnacle of cunning to his young mind. They never succeeded. But still, he tried.

 

* * *

 

 

The giggling set him off. The cultists rarely laughed, and when they did, it was a cruel sound. It was never light like that. Happy. Playful.

They giggled as they wrenched open his cell door, stumbling over themselves to pull him up by his wrists. They bade him to put up his hood. Somebody did it for him.

The boy didn’t wonder if they had come to rescue him. He knew no one was coming for him. That nobody wanted to save him. He still felt betrayed when he was led to one of the few rooms with a proper door, far from the temple entrance.

There were pillows and blankets strewn about the cold ground. A few were already there, lounging about and eating figs. Naked.

The small group who led him there began to strip their robes off, giggling as they went. Someone seized the hem of the boy’s robe and pulled the entire thing over his head. One of his sleeves caught on his shoulder. It hurt.

He didn’t resist, didn’t see the point in it, but they tied him up anyway. Lashed his hands together behind his back and knelt him on a cushion in the center of the room.

They tipped wine into his mouth, blew their smoke in his face. Someone played a pipe in the corner, and a few danced. The boy shifted on his knees.

Someone wrapped their arms around him from behind. Hands danced over his chest and ribs, coming up to stroke his chin. A few of the cultists were already starting to masturbate. The hand snapped his head to the side, and warm lips met his.

He couldn’t call it a kiss. He’d only had a few, fellow street kids, boys and girls who were as eager to sate their curiosity as he was. They hadn’t meant anything, and the children he’d practiced with were all either dead or had moved on with their lives, with barely a memory of the strange looking boy they had brushed lips with once.

But still. Even with his lack of experience, he knew it wasn’t this. This wasn’t a kiss.

This was a hunger. Mashing their mouth on his, biting his lip. Tongue invading his mouth and exploring it at leisure. He was something to be consumed. Not a partner.

The lips broke off from his and moved down to his neck, running their tongue along the side. Two more hands clapped his cheeks, another pair of lips. Another pair of hands. Roaming over his body and touching everything that was theirs.

The boy was pushed down, the person at his back almost laying on his spine and pushing him forward. His chest would have touched his knees, but the hands. The hands.

There was joking. Someone had enough presence of mind to remind the others not to penetrate him, or allow him to penetrate them. The others laughed. Another joked that it was the day of purging, so it didn’t really count if they took his virginity that night. Nobody laughed. Someone else punched the offending cultist hard enough to knock them out.

Someone held a stick of burning incense in front of his face and bade the boy to inhale deeply. His world became foggy and tinged with blue. He didn’t try to keep control of his facilities, to concentrate on what was being done to him while he still could. He chased the feeling of lightness and floated.

He touched ground a few times, but every time someone would return with a pipe or a burning stick and lift him off his feet once again. Eventually, though, he became aware that he was very much grounded. And that he was on his back.

People moved on top of him. No, not in him-they weren’t even touching him. An entirely different couple, the female on her hands and knees above him and her male partner behind her. Both of them, rutting against each other like dogs.

The woman noticed his look, gave him a wink and shoved one of her breasts in his face. The boy turned away.

The rest of the cultists were behaving in the same way. All around the room. Laid out on the cushions and up against the wall. Usually two, but a few with three and one train where the boy counted at least five. All different mixes of sexes. Fornicating.

He wanted to ask for another puff, anything to lift him out of the room. He opened his mouth and couldn’t find the words. So he instead focused on the ceiling. Imagined his whalesongs and dreamed that he was adrift in the ocean.

Later, after the cultists had washed the smell of perfume and sex off him, they guided him back to his cell. One of them knelt in front of him as they sat him on his cot, told him not to tell the rest of the cult that they had allowed him to celebrate with them. They bopped him on the nose, and kissed his cheek before they strode out. Left him again.

 

* * *

 

 

The cultist used a pair of pinchers to grab his ear and pull. The pain of thrashing about and the very real possibility of ripping his own ear off was enough to dissuade him from fighting. Even if it hadn’t been, the cultists had bound him hand and foot.

They didn’t bother showing him the needle, but he saw it anyway. The boy thought about arguing, but he didn’t see the point.

The first piercing didn’t hurt as much as he thought it might have. Neither did the second. But the pain increased as they went up the ear and into the harder bits of cartilage. The bits of metal they stuck into the holes weighed his ear down considerably as well. He didn’t like it.

He fought harder when they went to switch sides. The Augur finally came up and held his head still himself, whispering threats and insults in the boy’s now adorned ear. The pinchers grabbed hold of the other ear and the process repeated.

They wrapped a piece of fabric around his head, covering his ears and tying it off tightly at his forehead. They explained that they wouldn’t have to do it, they could have just let the piercings be, if they hadn’t been so sure he would have torn them out.

The boy wouldn’t stay still enough for the nose piercing. The Augur slapped his cheek, clapped his hands on both sides of the boy’s face, even tried sitting with the boy’s head in between his knees and his fingers gripping his hair. He still fought. The cultist giving the piercings finally gave up, saying they’d try later. Maybe when he was drugged.

His disobedience earned him a beating, and after his cheeks were bruised and blood was dripping from his nose, the Augur tied his hands and led the boy back to his cell.

An argument broke out in the great room, and the Augur had to pause to resolve it. His hands abandoned the boy’s shoulders, and he took half a step away from the boy.

The boy wondered if he should take the opportunity. But he was tired, so tired. He felt dizzy and thirsty, and the blood on his face was starting to dry and itch. He wanted to lie down.

He looked up at the circular hole in the roof, took note of the stars. They had shifted since the last time he paid attention to them, before he was taken. The boy noted the season, and realized, with great displeasure, that he was fifteen now. The season in which he was born had long passed.

The Augur seemed to remember the boy in that moment, and reached out for him. He pulled the boy in and gestured to him in a show of display; his hands came up, threading fingers through the boy’s hair and stroking his face. The other cultists nodded in understanding. The boy didn’t listen to what the Augur was saying. The Augur pulled him possessively to his side and drew him close, and the boy allowed himself to rest his head against the Augur’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hardly anyone is reading this, but I already have it written so I might as well post it.  
> This is all technically pre-history in the Dishonored universe, so the current calendar year and the day of the Fugue Feast haven't been established, but we can say it was based on an already-existing tradition. Because it really amuses me that the Dishonored world basically has the equivalent of The Purge and everyone just kinda uses it to have lots of weird sex.   
> Harvey said that The Outsider isn't able to change his appearance and that the cult who sacrificed him dressed him and picked out his jewelry. I'm taking some artistic liberty with that, considering how his clothing is extremely modern and isn't even consistent between games. Let the poor kid change his clothes, geeze. The cult has their own cult-y reasons for decking him out the way they do, and it won't necessarily translate into how he appears as The Outsider.


	4. Chapter 4

_The only one worth believing in was my master._   
_He’s the one who never lied, he told me it was cruel outside._   
_He told me how I had to hide. His words were cold as stone._   
_But they were true._   
_Not like you._

* * *

  
The rituals got worse. _Strange._

The prophecies were bad enough, wreaking havoc on his mind and body for days on end. The cultists would withhold food from him, giving him only enough water to wet his throat and keep him talking about the visions. Sometimes they’d pour the bitter, red liquid down his throat; sometimes they gave him bitter-tasting mushrooms to induce the hallucinations. Sometimes it was a smoke he was forced to inhale, burning his nose and filling his eyes and mind with the most peaceful blue before the real visions began. He wondered if it was what dying felt like. The drug sessions left him a dry husk, empty and exhausted and in no position to fight back as he was carried back to his cell.

Some of the new rituals weren’t so bad. They were supposed to make him more biddable. Pliant. He’d rest or sleep as cultists did their chants and prayers over him, their noise fading into the background as his mind slipped away. Sometimes they’d strip him naked and paint strange symbols onto his body. The boy still didn’t like being naked before the cultists, but he had grown used to it. The brushes tickled his skin as they marked his palms, his shoulders, his belly.

But the cultists could never just be kind to him. No, for every tolerable ceremony or ritual there was, there were three more that were more horrible than the last.

He was dunked naked into vats of icy water, held under until he nearly stopped struggling and then brought back up for one desperate, wet lungful of air before his head was forced down again. Or he was forced to lay there, motionless, seeing black spots appear in the air and feeling his limbs go numb. The cultists told him to focus on that, the retreating heat in his body and where he could no longer feel his skin.

They would wrap him up in fabrics and force him to lay in a room heated with hot rocks and steam for hours, sweating out his impurities. People would stay with him, watching over him or laying down to sweat themselves, but they always changed out before he was allowed to leave.

Sometimes they even forced him to ingest poisons. Small amounts, nothing quite enough to kill him. But they forced him to heave and sweat and shake violently enough that he thought he could hear his very bones rattle. They didn’t induce visions, but the cultists would still ask him what he saw and heard anyway.

And in between every punishment and ceremony, he was kept in his cell, and the periods of solidarity stretched so long in his mind that he almost felt thankful for a brief second when they came to lead him away once again.

He still kept his spinning top, nestled under the furs. He never brought it out, lest it be taken and destroyed. He’d be whipped too, but that didn’t concern him. The knowledge that the toy was there, the ability to reach down and feel it’s pointed top and carved faces, that was enough comfort for him.

 

* * *

 

 

During one of the fights, one of his desperate bids for freedom, the boy was thrown against the wall of his cell with enough force that a shard of rock came loose. He picked it up, long after they were gone. Rolled it over in his hands. As a test, he rubbed one of the edges over the floor. A thin line appeared. It was faint, but it was there, and it did not wipe away when he rubbed his hand over it.

The boy first tried to mimic what he saw the cultists draw. Symbols and stars, circles spanning out from the center of the room. He couldn’t move his cot so he was unable to close some of the wider circles. He figured that was okay, that the circles weren’t truly complete. He had no idea what symbols to draw to keep the cultists from entering his sanctum, to keep them from taking him out of it. What would make the nightmares go away and keep his old wounds from hurting. It wasn’t magic. He didn’t know how.

Then he began on the walls. Scribbed nonsense, the rock felt odd in his hand. Like he was unsure how to wield it. The boy tried to remember drawing in the sand as a young child, with a stick or his fingers. It was different, and he couldn't quite remember. He still couldn’t quite figure out how to close his fingers around the stone.

He got bored, and the make-believe writing evolved into pictures. People with a few lines that would denote their limbs and torsos, round faces and smiles without lips. He would draw two little dots for his own eyes. He was the only one without a smile.

Drawing the temple and it’s activities just served to depress him further. He rubbed out a few of the worst depictions, the ones that made his heart leap into his throat when he caught sight of it. His lamp cast little light and the original pictures weren’t immediately obvious if he didn’t examine them too closely.

He tried to draw the sea. Tried to form waves out of the fake letters and scribbles. He drew a tail emerging from the water, and soon he was drawing whales. He imagined the scribblings as mournful songs emitting from their mouths. Then he drew birds. A tree, some flowers. An ocean he knew only existed in his mind, but whose existence brought him comfort anyway.

The cultists didn’t notice at first. The boy thought maybe it was the lamplight. The dim, bluish light was funny on his eyes, and he always noticed that the light from the fire almost hurt when he was let out. The cultists’ eyes were not adjusted to the lamp. They did not see the faint markings as easily as the boy did.

And the boy wondered what else could be hidden so easily. What they didn't know look for. What they didn't realize they should be searching for in the first place.

 

* * *

 

 

He contemplated feigning ignorance, when they brought him back from one of his vision sessions to the door to his cell already wide open, with the Augur standing there waiting for his return.

He could. He couldn’t even articulate why it was wrong, when no rules had ever been laid out for him, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Wasn’t supposed to anything. Everything he did and was was wrong until they embraced that wrongness, told him it made him special.

The Augur made short work of inspecting the cell. They found the spinning top while ripping apart his cot. The Augur slapped him for that, promised him another beating when he leaned over to hiss in his ear.

They were curious about the markings. Gestured to them worriedly, whispered about them between themselves. The boy couldn’t tell if he did well on them, if he reproduced them faithfully enough that they thought he was learning or if he had butchered them so bad they were having second thoughts about whatever they thought he was. He couldn’t decide which one to hope for.

His punishment was carried out in private, only a few of the inner circle that he had come to know and recognize in the room. They poured a bucket of water over him and told him to cup his hands. They placed the spinning top in his palms and set it alight. They dunked his hands in a bath of icy water when the toy was ash and his hands were pink and charred.

They didn’t allow him to sleep that night, or that day. Perhaps the night after, or more. The boy couldn’t keep track of the movements of the temple, concentrate on the faces that shook him and slapped him to keep him awake and how often they were changed out. When he was finally allowed to sleep, it was dreamless.

True to his word, the Augur whipped him when he woke up. Blood from his back dried and left the boy itching and unable to scratch with his hands tied above his head. The Augur washed and bandaged the cuts and the boy was grateful they were in the mountains and had to use freshwater for bathing.

The beatings didn’t bother him, but the fact that he was forced to sleep in the Augur’s chambers with him did. He had no privacy, was kept naked but for what his bandages covered. He was kept tied up and completely dependent on others to feed, bathe, and relieve himself.

And he hated it. He hated it, he hated them, he hated the cult. He hated whatever made him special, made them choose him. He screamed as much at the Augur. Until his voice went hoarse and the Augur just smiled gently, poured some water in the boy’s dry mouth and told him to get some rest.

 

* * *

 

 

The boy didn’t tell the Augur that he felt sick. He didn’t think he’d be believed. And he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of relying on them.

The fever soon grew too severe to ignore, however. He was hot to the touch, cold sweat soaking through his bandages and chilling his skin.

The Augur saw the boy’s red face, felt his forehead. He unwrapped his bandages and cursed when he found parts of his back, where his own whip met the boy’s flesh, were puffy and swollen, red with white streaks.

The medicine man was called in again. He drained the pus from the pockets of infection on the boy’s back, laid leaves over the open sores. He got angry with the Augur, something the boy had never seen anyone else do during his time in the cult. Said that the boy’s illness had progressed too far, that he couldn’t do anything for him. They’d have to rely on prayer and hope the boy was strong enough to survive it.

In a way, the boy hoped he died. Not that he truly wanted to die; he hadn’t wished for death before. But it felt like a sort of vengeance. To deny the cultists the prince they had demanded, that they so desperately deserved.

He was working against the Augur, who ran himself ragged trying to prevent that outcome. He untied the boy from the table he slept on and wrapped him in blankets, placed him in his own bed. He kept a wet rag on the boy’s forehead and prayed with his hands over the boy’s heart.

When the boy was lucid enough, he spat curses at the man, taking advantage of his temporary immunity from punishment. But he was usually all but lost to the world. Twisting and thrashing in place, sweating and gasping, struggling just to draw breath sometimes. Once, he knew, he cried out for his mother. But it was only the Augur there, pushing his sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead and whispering soothing nothingness in his ear.

The boy hadn’t thought about his mother in a long time. He didn’t need her. He was capable of feeding himself, had managed for years to keep himself alive in spite of the unforgiving world around him. He rarely made friends with other street kids. They usually thought him strange looking and even stranger acting, and they avoided him or threw rocks at him. The few who did give him a chance either got bored quickly or he did, or they died. He had been alone most of his life. The concept of people who cared about him, of family, of _parents_ , felt foreign in his mind. He didn’t need anyone. He didn’t need his mother.

But he wanted her. He wanted the bits and pieces he could remember of her, her black hair and the colorful skirts that she wore because they reminded her of her homeland. The way she sang to him, at night, to ward the bad dreams off as they nestled together in whatever shelter they could find. How she used to tie up his hair before they set about looking for food or work for the day, gently, to avoid pulling any stray hairs. He wished it was her hand lovingly stroking his face, dabbing a cloth at his brow. He wondered if he’d be reunited with her when he died. If he would find himself cradled in her arms, finding comfort in her embrace once more as they faded together into peaceful nothingness.

But the fever broke. The boy awoke to a darkened world, feeling dizzy and weak but alive. Beside him, the Augur was snoring.

He lifted his head, wondering if he could slip out of bed quietly enough, if he could get the door open and sneak across the temple without waking anyone.

But just thinking of the plan worsened his headache, and the simple act of lifting his head had him seeing double.

The boy dropped back down and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The cultist with the piercing tools came again. This time, the boy laid still, prone on the bed and allowed the Augur to cradle his head in his lap, let her push her needle through the side of his nostril. She looked at his ear piercings, cleaned them off and re-pierced the ones that had healed shut after he dug all the metal out of them.

The Augur patted his head and praised his good behavior. They talked about doing his tongue or his lip, but agreed that it would be too risky to do anything near his mouth. Too difficult to keep the boy from harming himself with it. Besides, there was no need to push their luck when he was already sitting so nicely for them.

They measured each of his fingers, his neck. Wrapped her tape around his waist, his skin shrunken and hugging his bones like a wet cloak. She knelt on the Augur’s bed, drummed her fingers across his chest, as if counting each individual rib. The boy thought he had as many as anyone else.

He closed his eyes, tried to nap. Sleep eluded him. So he listened in.

They were talking about something, the Augur and the woman who had come to put holes in his ears. A delivery, come up from a city near the sea, in the direction the sun set. Though, the Augur stressed, gently running his fingers over the boy’s closed eyes, the blade would be forged here. Where they could ensure no blood of another touched it before it was time.

The boy wished he had been asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

The boy’s life had become an endless waking nightmare. There was no rest, no respite. Day in and day out, he was drugged to keep him docile and drugged again to make the visions come. The cultists were desperate now, the boy could sense. He had wasted much time in being sick, and they were frantic to make up for it. There was so much he had yet to tell them. Time, even the boy could tell, was running out.

He no longer fought. He knew they were expecting his animosity, his tricks. Where he once would bite and smack the hands away, he laid pliant and allowed the cultists to do as they pleased. Where he used to scream curses, he nodded his head and thanked them for taking care of him. He acted beaten.

The cultists were pleased. Watched him closely, still, but the boy knew they’d forget to be careful soon enough, if he didn’t do anything to remind them. He just had to wait.

Escape would be impossible as he was. The visions clouded him, blurred the line between realities. Sometimes they completely blinded him. Sometimes it was an actual blindfold, tied around his eyes to help him focus on what he saw within.

And even if he could see, he was always surrounded. Cultists gathered around to hear their prince dole out prophecies, like he could see into the very future itself. Sometimes they held him, wrapped their arms around him and touched whatever flesh they could find. He was, more often than not, naked for these sessions.

Sometimes he tried to act benumbed after the drugs had worn off. But the sessions already lasted so long, and they were quick to call the medicine man if he was under the influence much longer than they expected.

Sometimes he begged for rest. The only sleep he got was when they dosed him with the sleeping tincture, giving him a few hours immersed in even more vivid nightmares than his waking ones. He’d wake screaming, batting hands away and clawing for freedom. The cultists would just bind his hands and ask, eagerly, what he had seen.

Then, very suddenly, the visions stopped. No more strange liquids dripped through his veins, no more pungent smokes filled his lungs. He was carried back to his cell, exhausted, but sober.

His light had been removed, as had his bucket and cot. The room was pitch-black and bare. But the boy knew the feel of the place.

They left him there.

 

* * *

 

 

The boy had no way of measuring time. But it must have been days before someone came to tend to him. He was a dry husk by then.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shied away from the dim blue light when it appeared in his doorway, and a cultist was quick to dart in and turn him around, away from the light.

They fed and watered him, just enough to make the floor beneath him stop moving. He tried to ask them his questions. They didn’t shush him. They didn’t respond at all.

Someone ran a cloth over parts of his body, where he was the most soiled. They let him relieve himself in a bucket they brought in. He could watch their shadows dance across the floor, but they wouldn't allow him to lift his head. Then one of the cultists laid him down, pressed his face into the stone and retreated back out the door.

The process repeated itself every time they came for him. The visits were well spaced out, so far apart he fainted several times waiting for hydration and sustenance. Sometimes they didn’t even feed him. Just gave him a swallow of water and were on their way. What little food he was given gradually tapered off, until he was given a mouthful of bread that stuck to the roof of his mouth that served to tide him over for several days. The boy missed the feasts of his early days with the cult.

Outside those times, the boy was truly alone. No light reached his sanctum, nor sound. Sometimes when he had the energy he beat his fists against the stone floor just to ensure he could still feel pain.

Sometimes he imagined he was in the depths of the ocean, so deep underwater that no light penetrated the place. But try as he might, he could not imagine the whalesongs into existence.

He was set adrift. Lost to it.

And then he was pulled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based a lot of my headcanon of the Outsider's mother on Daud's badass witch-pirate mum. I kind of have a whole character and backstory formed for her, all of which is completely useless because she's a character with about seven degrees of separation from the main canon. Oh well. I felt like it was kind of important to at least write a little bit about her, considering the poor kid's just a baby. Mothers are a symbol of comfort and security, and this kid had none of that.

**Author's Note:**

> The Outsider's death took place roughly 4,000 years before the events of the Dishonored games. In-universe, the games take place in 1837 and 1852, respectively. However, the creators have chimed in to say that this is basically the modern era in the Dishonored world-they've just progressed differently than our world. Either way, this puts the Outsider's ascension somewhere around 2000 B.C. Smack in the middle of the Bronze Age.  
> Since progress differed so much across the globe, and world of Dishonored doesn't correspond perfectly to real-world locations, I got to be a little picky with what I decided they had during that time. But I do (and will) try to stay true to the time period and only portray things that would have realistically have existed at that time.  
> The brothel scene probably isn't that historical accurate. My research on ancient prostitution practices didn't bear much fruit. We'll invoke writer's discretion for any inaccuracies.  
> I don't know what the Cult of the Outsider would really value before there even was an Outsider. They reject worldly possessions and I think they would want a rather 'blank canvas' in which to create their avatar, so I doubt they'd want him learning from them or even thinking too much about anything but culty things.  
> I chose to make it so they wanted a virgin for the ritual. Because if I didn't, realistically, this would all devolve into a bunch of cultists dicking a fifteen-year-old. I mean, if that's your jam, then by all means go for it, but that's not the idea I had for this piece. There's going to be some molestation here, I'll be frank, but no rape.  
> This was supposed to be a oneshot. Yeah, that worked out swell. Around 12k words I realized that wasn't happening. So I divided it up and put lyrics in between bits, so this is basically a fucking songfic now. Hey it's 2005 again everybody.  
> I haven't posted any writing online, or really worked on one piece, for a couple years now. So uhhhh, just imagine me screaming like a pterodactyl the entire way through and you'll have a pretty accurate idea of how this was written.  
> This shit is finished. I have some editing on the last chapter that I want to do, but other than that I just have to type up my notes and upload. Also figure out how to upload things better, because getting this to your screen was far more complicated than it really needed to be. Next bit should be up in a couple days.


End file.
